[wdmmg-discuss] Nomenclature change - Departments vs. Entities

Mon Aug 16 13:48:03 UTC 2010

On 15 August 2010 12:39, William Waites <william.waites at okfn.org> wrote:
> So I've made some progress on modelling the accounts, and
> I've thought to make a nomenclature change. Colloquially the
> entities in the CRA are referred to as departments. Most of them
> are, but some are not. Examples include
>
>  * Deputy Prime Minister's Office (doesn't really exist as a
>     post even, Nick Clegg is technically Lord President of the
>     Council, First Secretary of State is often used as well)
>  * ENG_HRA - I believe this is the housing revenue account
>     subsidy managed by the DCLG
>  * ENG_LA - Funding disbursed to english local authorities
>     in aggregate
>  * Scottish Executive and its departments - another
>    catchall
>  * Welsh Local Government Adjustment/Input - another
>    catchall like ENG_LA
>
> So I'm proposing to call all of these things Entities, as
> in "entities that can spend or receive UK public funds"
> and where appropriate put an owl:equivalentClass
> that points at the department if it is a department.
>
> Sound reasonable?

Yes, and in fact the term entity is better anyway as we've been
referring to the things at the end of  "from" and "to" attributes on
'Transactions' (to be renamed 'Entry' I think) as 'Entities'.

Rufus